Despite significant allocations from Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration and the City Council, much of the city’s infrastructure is dated or in disrepair—a problem likely to be magnified with climate change and a growing population.

That’s according to the findings of a report released on Tuesday by the Center for an Urban Future. The think tank completed a five-year re-examination of a prior report on the city’s infrastructure needs. The report found that the city has more than doubled its four-year capital spending budget since 2014, reaching $58.2 billion allocated this fiscal year. But despite the spending increase, the majority of city agencies have less than 40% of their state-of-good-repair projects funded.

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“The good news is that there has been significant progress made in these five years, with a record level of investment,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future. “But the needs have only grown: The city’s core infrastructure has grown older and there are all sorts of new stresses.”

New Yorkers were given a clear reminder of those stresses this summer. In the six weeks before the report was published, extreme heat caused blackouts and heavy rains flooded city streets and inundated subway stations. Bowles said only time will tell if those events are a sign of future breakdowns to come.

“What we have seen in the past couple months is that it is not just the subway system that needs investment,” Bowles said. “We have very old sewer networks, water main systems, streets—all absolutely in need of funding.”

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Center for an Urban Future

Even as the city puts up money to address infrastructure deficiencies, Bowles said factors outside the city’s control often “move the goalposts” for what needs to be accomplished. As an example, the city replaced about 93 miles of water mains last year, up from an average of 34 miles replaced between 2014 and 2016. Even with those improvements, the city counted a decade-high 522 water-main breaks in 2018. The city attributed the jump to an increase in the number of freeze-thaw cycles—events likely to increase in frequency as the climate changes, the report said.

About 28.6% of city streets show signs of distress, despite the city's resurfacing an average of 1,182 lane miles yearly since 2014, up from an average of just 852 miles per year between 2000 and 2013.

New to this year's report, the center examined the city's sustainability and resiliency efforts. The government has made some progress toward de Blasio's vision to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. Citywide emissions were down 17% in 2017 compared with the 2005 baseline. The number of curbside rain gardens, green roofs and permeable parks and playgrounds—all designed to capture stormwater runoff— throughout the city have increased 1500% in the past five years.

Bowles said the city has completed an impressive number of green infrastructure projects in the past half-decade, but he stressed that those projects cannot be done in isolation.

"You cannot neglect upgrading city schools and replacing old water mains," he said. "There is an old core of infrastructure with significant needs."

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